Europe bound.......

Our trip to Europe seems to be approaching very fast I not been to Europe and am very much looking forward to it. Our 4 weeks will be spent in England, Whales and Scotland. This trip would not be complete if it did not involve ham radio. I am planning on taking my Elecraft KX1 it has the Palm paddle key affixed to the side. At this moment I plan to take two antennas one

ARRL CW DX contesting with 5 watts....3....2....then 500 mW's

As the weekend approached the propagation condition were improving beyond what I had hoped for.  With the solar flux well over 100, sunspots going from 50 up to 100 things were looking great for the ARRL CW DX contest. I had decided to take a very leisurely approach to contesting for me the fun factor is much more important. I am happy to say that there was no computer, radio or antenna hiccups this time around.

ARRL DX CW contest + increase SFI = great conditions

20 meters is jumping with action

I am taking a very leisurely approach to the ARRL CW DX contest, just having fun giving out some points. I will say the increased SFI has served me well. I have no problem being heard all over Europe with 3 watts with my dipole in the attic. I  can only hear reports of how 10 and 15 are doing (and they are very good) as I don't at this time have any antennas setup for those bands. One thing I find happens is the big gun super stations are flying with the CW and in some cases I don't even send my exchange and they are already thanking me and moving on.....happen 4 times so far...........Oh well contest on!!!!!!!!

We are now cooking with gas.................

Finally systems normal

I can say that to get this screen back again it was not a smooth process at all. I went online to see how I could remove the spy-ware and most of the sites I went to would scan the PC and let you know what was wrong but then there was the cost to purchase the software to remove the problem...funny thing was it was advertised as "free".....a wise man once told me "nothing is free"....how true. I then came across sites that gave me step by step

You gotta love Spyware, virus's and trojans

Not having a good day with the computer at all....the ARRL contest starts to night and it looks like I will be busy with other issues!!!!! Its time to wash the computer of a virus or something.....keep  you posted.

WSPR and the Elecraft K3

 After weeks of some frustrating times on Saturday I finally got on WSPR with my K3. I only have access to 20 and 40 meters but soon will have a dipole in the attic for 30 meters. The RTTY contest this weekend made the bands a very crowded place. I first wanted to thank all those from the Elecraft reflector for their advice and help....KB7ST,G3ZOD,M0DDT,K0AWU,ZL1PWD,W6NIA,N3ZP and  those who emailed me as well from the WSPR website.  I still have some ruffled edges to work out. For now my output power is 5 watts or 37dbm. I will be dropping it to 1 watts or less.
Here is my setup with the Elecraft K3 with the KXV3A

ICOM unveils their new rig

IC-7410

 The basic performance and advanced feature, provide a full HF operational.
* The same level of 32bit floating point DSP running at high end models.
* The third order intercept point (IP3) +30 dBm Class (HF band) achieved.
* Double super scheme in the wake of a flagship machine.
* 15 / ※ 6 / ※ 3 kHz with the 1st IF filter.
* Large display, a larger MIC / RF PWR knob due to improved operations.
* RTTY comfortable operation to achieve frequency stability ± 0.5ppm.
* Standard band scope to achieve efficient operation.
* IP remote control software supports RS-BA1.

 Some other links:

Universal radio

Rigreference

AB4OJ's page with many more links

Can you hear me now....with the MFJ-1026 I can!!!!!

I have had the  MFJ-1026 for about two weeks now with the chance to give it a good workout. The price is 230.00 and I was impressed with the packaging. The only assembly was (if you are going to use it) installing the mini whip antenna. I tried the whip antenna but found my "rain gutter" receiving antenna did a better job. As with all new equipment I wanted to get right in there and use the noise canceler as soon as it was out of the box. Do yourself a big favor and read the user manual. If not the MFJ-1026 can be a frustrating experience, it's very important to learn the in's and out's of this unit before putting it into service. At my location I have 230kv hydro lines out the back as well as a nice noisy plasma TV in the living room. When you combine the two sources at times I have an S9 noise level. The plasma TV I can work to reduce the interference it produces but I'm stuck with the 230kv hydro lines.

Its said...a picture is worth a thousand words

More paper work with the hobby than at work.

As you know I have been playing with my new MFJ 1026 noise canceling unit. It's now time to fit it into the "radio mess" that I have. I was wanting to use it with my K3, K2 and Elecraft KX1 and not to be greedy the sub receiver on my K3 along with diversity mode.  ( as I have been told dreams are free) I had to bring out the paper and pencil for this one as I am the "a picture is worth a thousand words" kinda guy!! In my setup I have the three radios, Telepost's LP-Pan, LP-100 ,Edgeport USB to serial converter, Creative labs 0202 external sound card and finally the LDG 4 and 6 position switches.  To often I have rushed into things and just hooked it up to "getter done" and on the air. Having said that there had been to many times after the fact  I should of sat down and moved more slowly and caused less damage. I was able to cable things so any of the radios that I am using could take advantage of the MFJ 1026. I did notice for some reason I forgot to put the 1:1 balun back into the mix so that had to be done. ....but.... it seems I am not able have both receivers in the K3 hooked up to one noise canceling unit The noise canceler is  not cheap so getting another is out of the picture I am going to have to settle on where in the big picture the K3's receivers and MFJ 1026 are going fit. A few more cups of coffee and some block diagrams are in order.